creating simple survey

We have a shared drive at work where I want to put my java jar file and my program. I want to then send an email to everyone with a shortcut in it to the java jar file. Then I want them to be able to open it and a few questions will come up in a jpanel...like (name, address, etc). Now, I will need to store that information. Should I write to text file their input? or create a database? Also, how do I create the program so whenever one of my coworkers will put in info and click the ADD button, the program will update the list on the screen with updated info? Is this somethinng I could do in an evening?

Re: creating simple survey

Personally, this is something that I would do with HTML, PHP and an SQL database. It makes organizing large amounts of data easier. Do you want to prevent duplicate entries? How familiar are you with Swing? What about database integration in Java? These are things that you would have to look into. It can be done with Java, probably not too difficult, but I don't think this is something a beginner can do in an evening.

Re: creating simple survey

creating using Swing is no problem.....i'm familar with jtextfields, jbuttons, jlabels and panels and layouts....so creating the actual form is no big deal. What I don't know how to do is storing and displaying the data the best way. Like, Employee 1 will update the form...I need to store that info somewhere. let's say I store in text file (multiple people using the program at same time, so file might be open when another user tries to update - that's gona be a problem right) . Now I wanna display all the entered information (let's say in JLabels)....How do i take the input from different employees and multiple people running same program on same jlabel on all the versions of the program? Is there a way to run only one version or my program on multiple computers if they have access to same drive?

Re: creating simple survey

Yeah, you can't really have multiple people writing to a text file at the same time. You would need to use some type of database. If you wanted to display what other people have submitted to the user (Taken from the database), I would recommend using a JTextArea. You would need to run a unique instance of the program for each user. What you could do is make a server client type of application where the client sends the data back to the server and the server sends some information back to the client.